Scott Taylor

Scott Taylor's research is highly interdisciplinary ranging from synthetic organic chemistry to medicinal chemistry and enzymology, to the development of new bionanomaterials. He develops new synthetic methodology and applies it to the synthesis of novel biomolecules and materials such as modified steroids, carbohydrates, amino acids, peptides, nucleosides, nucleotides and starch nanoparticles.

His research program is currently focused on four key areas: (1) the synthesis and study of cyclic lipodepsipeptide antibiotics; (2) the development of novel phosphorylation chemistry and its application to the synthesis of inhibitors of cytidine triphosphate synthase, an anti-cancer and antiviral target; (3) the development of inhibitors of steroid sulfatase, a breast cancer target; and (4) the modification of starch nanoparticles which are evaluated for their ability to extract oil from oil sands and as novel wound dressings.

A wide variety of techniques are employed such as nuclear magnetic resonance, fluorimetry, high-performance liquid chromatography, protein purification, spectrophotometry, mass spectrometry, differential scanning calorimetry and dynamic light scattering.

• Biological and medicinal chemistry
• Synthetic methodology
• Enzymology
• Bionanomaterials
• Drug Discovery, Design and Delivery
• Biomaterials, Polymers and Bioplastics
• Nanomaterials

• 1991, PhD, Chemistry, University of Toronto, Canada
• 1986, BSc, Biochemistry, McGill University, Canada

• 2023, Bernard Belleau Award, Chemical Institute of Canada
• 2012 and 2017, Outstanding Performance Award
• 2000, Premiere’s Research Excellence Award
• 1997, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists (IUPAC) Travel Award
• 1992-1994, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University
• 1990-1991, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
• 1990, Bio-Mega Boehringer Ingelheim Inc. Award for Excellence in Graduate Research, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
• 1988-1990, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Post-1988-90 Graduate Scholarship B, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
• 1988, George F. Wright Seminar Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
• 1987-1988, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
• 1984-1985, Faculty Scholar, McGill University

• 2014-present, Chair, Mass Spec Users Committee
• 2013-present, Awards Committee
• 2000-present, NMR Users Committee

• Member, Institute of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
• Member, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology

• CHEM 262 - Organic Chemistry for Engineering
  • Taught in 2021
• CHEM 381 - Bioorganic Chemistry
  • Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024
• CHEM 383 - Medicinal Chemistry
  • Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024
• CHEM 400 - Special Topics in Chemistry
  • Taught in 2024
• CHEM 760 - Selected Topics in Organic Chemistry
  • Taught in 2020

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Kralt, B.; Moreira, R.; Palmer, M.; Taylor, S. D.* Total Synthesis of Analogs of A54145D and A54145A1 for Structure-Activity Relationship Studies. 2020, in press.
• Soley, J.; Taylor, S. D.* A Mild, Rapid, Chemo- and Regioselective Procedure for the Introduction of the 9-Phenyl-9-fluorenyl Protecting Group into Amines, Acids, Alcohols, Sulfonamides and Amides. J. Org. Chem. 2020, in press.
• Mohamady, S.; Ismaila, M. I.; Mogheith, S. M.; Attiac, Y. M.; Taylor, S. D. Discovery of 5-Aryl-3-Thiophen-2-yl-1H-Pyrazoles as a New Class of HSP90 Inhibitors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Bioorg.Chem., 2020, 103433.
• Moreira, R.; Diamandas, M.; Taylor, S. D.* Synthesis of Fmoc-protected amino alcohols via the Sharpless asymmetric aminohydroxylation reaction using FmocNHCl as the nitrogen source. J. Org. Chem. 2019, 84, 15476-15485.
• Kralt, B.; Moreira, R.; Palmer, M.; Taylor, S. D.* Total synthesis of A5145 factor D. J. Org. Chem. 2019, 84, 12021-12030.
• Noden, M.; Moreira, R.; Huang, E.; Yousef, A.; Palmer, M.; Taylor, S. D.* Total Synthesis of Paenibacterin and its Analogs. J. Org. Chem., 2019, 8, 5339-5347.
• Zheng, B.; Karski, M.; Taylor, S. D.* Thermoresponsive hydroxybutylated starch nanoparticles. Carbohydr. Polymers, 2019, 206, 145-151.
• Moreira, R.; Barnawi, G.; Beriashvili, D.; Palmer, M.; Taylor, S. D.* The effect of replacing the ester bond with an amide bond and of overall stereochemistry on the activity of daptomycin. Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2019, 27, 240-246.